It was hot.

Shirt-sticking-to-your-back hot. Hairstyle-flopping hot. Slave ship hot.

Where the fuck was Elephant Man?

Philadelphia’s Mill Creek Community Center has long been one of the city’s reliable ghetto Dancehall venues. It’s basically an unremarkable rectangular barn-like structure, with high ceilings and a small stage in the front. Over the years, a who’s who of Dancehall – artists and sounds – have graced its humble stage.

Elephant Man, however, has outgrown Mill Creek. At the height of his crossover power, and after three solid weeks of frantic radio promotions on major urban radio, there was no way that Mill Creek was up to the task.

Philadelphia’s regular, reliable 700-plus hardcore Dancehall fans were there, of course. But joining them were another 2,000 casual fans and curious Yankees who only know Elephant Man and Dancehall from those crazy videos on MTV. Roughly three thousand people braved below freezing temperatures and paid upwards of $40 to see the energy god.

Three thousand people standing shoulder-to-shoulder in Mill Creek is not pleasant. The venue has no air-conditioning, and only three ceiling fans fought vainly against the sweltering heat. There was no coat check, so your choices were to walk from your car underdressed in the the winter chill, or keep your coat on in the club. The lone bar and its four bartenders were overwhelmed by the size of the crowd. And if you weren’t standing right next to the bar, it might as well have been in another country – there was simply no way to work your way through the thousands of thirsty patrons who were already waving their money in the faces of the shell-shocked servers.
And still no Ele.

Even though the promoters spent a bag of money promoting the dance on mainstream and crossover radio stations, they were still running it like a ghetto dance. 3:30 a.m., no Elephant Man. The bar ran out of Heineken. No Ele. The selector starts playing back tunes first played two hours earlier. Still no Ele.

The heat and the sardine-can claustrophobia were poisoning the vibes. The hot gals had no room to model. The dancers couldn’t display their moves. The voyeurs couldn’t enjoy their usual people watching (even the video man gave up trying to roam the crowd). The lean-up-on-the-wall posse found their valuable real estate taken by sweaty strangers, so they were forced to stand uncomfortably in the middle of the floor. Even the guy who usually takes Polaroid pictures of sketteles in front of champagne bottle backdrops was forced to take his portable photo studio elsewhere.

Where the fuck was Elephant Man?

The bandsmen took their places behind their instruments at roughly 3:45 a.m. It was immediately obvious that a pre-concert sound check had not been a priority. Boom Dandimite and Kip Rich were rushed through opening acts that were so abbreviated, you wondered why they bothered to come onstage at all. Then finally, blessedly, the energy god appeared to the faithful, who immediately forgot their discomfort and screamed delightedly.

Elephant Man was sporting a Marcus Camby basketball jersey, matching Denver Nuggets headband, and copious amounts of platinum jewelry. He was also wearing baseball batting gloves, a baseball cap, and carrying an aluminum baseball bat, which he used like some sort of gangsta baton to orchestrate the crowd’s movements. When he ditched the bat, cap and neck jewelry, Ele’s yellow-blonde braids shone brightly under the spotlights.

Immediately he began his dance class, leading a willing audience through all manner of ridiculous choreography. Higher Level. Log On. Signal The Plane. Fuck U Sign. Three Pointer. Thunder Clap. Thump The Sky. Shelly Belly. The crowd danced along, oblivious to the heat that even Ele began complaining of less than two minutes into his performance. They danced wildly, ignoring the fact that there were too many people, too close to each other, to accommodate all this flailing about.

Too much heat. Too much waiting. Too many people. Too much jumping around. You know the recipe.

Fight bruk!

The fight started front and center, next to the stage – the precise focal point of the crushing pressure of three thousand sweaty patrons. The fight triggered a stampede, naturally, but there really was nowhere to run. Mill Creek only has one exit, and three thousand people can’t exit at once. The wave of stampeding patrons washed onto the stage, knocking Elephant Man backwards, and causing untold damage to the band’s equipment. Ele and his traveling circus promptly exited, stage right. A few acrobatic mampie women climbed onto the speaker boxes and perched on other elevated structures, while less agile females hid behind men they didn’t know.
Elephant Man had been onstage less than 10 minutes.

The selector began playing Bob Marley tunes, presumably to soothe the savage crowd. The show’s not over, he said. Elephant Man is still in the house, he said. But even while he spoke, the keyboardist was dismantling his equipment and muttering profanities. Some random audience member who had washed up on stage began playing a hip-hop beat on what remained of the drum kit, and the hardcore fans streamed out of their beloved Mill Creek in disgust, while the newbies stood around and glanced expectantly at the stage.